Therapeutic garments and stockings are well known in the art and come in various configurations and are put to various uses. Compression therapy is primarily used for treating leg ulcers, treating dermatitis due to venous insufficiency (failure of veins and their valves to return blood to the heart), and treating congenital and acquired lymph edema and for treating edema due to congestive heart failure.
Known therapeutic compression garments and stockings are worn over the affected extremity and apply compression to the extremity which is generally evenly or smoothly distributed or applied to the surface area of the extremity. This compression assists the patient's venous return system in removing and returning blood from the extremity and towards the heart.
However, current therapeutic compression garments and stockings suffer from various drawbacks. One such drawback is that at any circumference along the length of the extremity, the known stockings apply a generally evenly distributed pressure about the limb. This relatively evenly distributed “pressure ring” tends to have a tourniquet effect on the limb which actually inhibits venous return. Also, known compressive stockings tend to slide more or less freely over the skin as the extremity to which the stocking is applied moves. This will occasionally produce a shearing injury to the skin. Shearing injury may also occur when the compression garment is put on or removed from the treated limb.
Additionally, prior art compression stockings are generally not well tolerated by patients as they tend to be uncomfortable, hot, cause excessive sweating of the underlying skin, all of which often limits the extent to which a patient may wear the prior art stocking.
The present invention is provided to solve the problems discussed above and other problems, and to provide advantages and aspects not provided by prior stockings of this type. A full discussion of the features and advantages of the present invention is deferred to the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.